Canada to the Rescue a/k/a Happy Birthday Stewart!

Did you know that the DISDads are international men of mystery? That’s right, in addition to the Canadians that we admit are members (and Terry), we have at least two among us who hail from across the sea. Across the Pacific, we have Casey in Korea. And across the Atlantic, there’s Paul in England. Paul’s son Stewart is currently part of the Disney International College Program, working at the Rose & Crown in Walt Disney World. And last week was Stewart’s birthday.

Last week, Paul mentioned to us over in our Facebook group (sorry folks, that’s a closed group. If you’re a Dad and you’re not yet a member, just ask and one of the admins will approve you) that it was Stewart’s birthday and Stewart had to work. It was sort of a double-bummer – Paul wasn’t going to get to celebrate Stewart’s birthday with him, and Stewart had to work. What to do? Celebrate DISDads style! We decided that we would try to get as many birthday wishes as possible to Stewart.

We got guys to volunteer to cover Stewart’s entire work shift in half-hour slots. Each Dad committed to calling an Epcot phone box until someone answered and agreed to go and wish Stewart at Rose & Crown a happy birthday. This is when we discovered that the UK phone boxes are not currently operational. Luckily, the Canada Pavilion is right next door – Canada to the rescue! (Note: We just posted the phone numbers of the Epcot phone boxes as part of the show notes for the Hidden Gems of the Epcot Area podcast). Overall, we had nine DISDads get through between 11:00 a.m. and 3:30 p.m. and get Epcot guests to agree to go and wish Stewart a happy birthday. Big thanks to Jason, Tim, Terry, Ryan, Kevin, David, Philip, Terrence, Paul and Randall for taking the time out of your day to try and send Stewart some birthday magic.

The only negative is that some of the guests who agreed to go and wish Stewart a happy birthday either didn’t actually follow through or couldn’t find Stewart at Rose & Crown (he’s a host now, so he moves around quite a bit). But the good news is that two people DID track down Stewart at the Rose & Crown and wished him a happy birthday. I’m glad we were able, in some small way, to bring a little bit of birthday magic to our adopted Cast Member Stewart, who was celebrating this birthday far away from home and family. 🙂 It’s this kind of effort and mutual support that makes the DISDads a special group of guys.